1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a game device and a game processing method. Particularly it relates to a game device for role-playing games and its game processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A role-playing game has been known for some time to be a game whose player can play the game by developing its scenario as if he or she were the character displayed on the screen. In role-playing games, the scenario generally develops when the player gives predetermined commands to the character on his or her side in consideration of the present situation.
Pursuant to the improvement of hardware performance, in recent years, production effects of the game are enhanced by providing game images of characters acting in a virtual three-dimensional space with three-dimensional graphics.
These three-dimensional graphics express objects three-dimensionally by calculating the spatial position of objects which are in the line-of-sight direction from the viewpoint position (sometimes referred to as “projection center position”) in a virtual three-dimensional space based on three-dimensional data for expressing objects, and by performing image processing such as rendering. In short, a game using three-dimensional graphics expresses the player's character or any other object as three-dimensional as seen from the viewpoint position and offers the game image which expresses a virtual three-dimensional space by moving one's viewpoint or line of sight along the player's operation or game scenes. The game image from such viewpoint position is metaphorically called camera angle and the variation of this camera angle is called camera work.
The interest in a role-playing game often comes from not only its story but also its image displayed. This is why the kind of game image that should be offered in creating games (game programs) is extremely important.
Nevertheless, in conventional role-playing games, only the characters related to predetermined commands move in correspondence with such commands. Therefore, the characters which are not related to the commands would not move and it was very unnatural to a player who is watching a game image.
For example, when a player gives his or her character a command to attack a specific enemy character, the battle scene of these characters is displayed. However, in conventional role-playing games, the characters which are not given any commands only absent-mindedly stand by, which makes the game image seem very unnatural.
Moreover, conventional role-playing games are structured by displaying only the characters that a player can operate and omitting the characters that should rightfully be displayed. And when such characters need to be displayed, they are suddenly displayed by switching scenes, etc. For that reason, the characters that are not displayed in the first scene of a game suddenly appear, which seems very unnatural to a player who is watching a game image.
Thus, an object of this invention is to provide a game device displaying the game image of a role-playing game in which the characters unrelated to any commands which the player gives can look as if they are moving.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a game device in which new characters enter or leave the current scene without a sense of incompatibility.
Hereinafter explained is the processing operation of a game device for controlling the relationship between the characters while they are fighting in an electronic game. When there is a fight between a player and a game device (a game processing computer), a player character controlled by the player attacks an enemy character controlled by the computer, or, the enemy character controlled by the computer attacks the player character. Here, while the player character attacks the enemy character, the enemy character is attacked by the player character, and in the opposite case, the player character is attacked by the enemy character. A process of reciprocal attacks between the enemy character and the player character is called 1 phase. For example, if there are 3 player characters, reciprocal attacks are conducted 3 times in turn between each of the 3 player characters and the enemy character, so there will be 3 phases. The total of these 3 phases corresponds to a stage called 1 turn. In short, 1 turn means a game stage for the successive attacks conducted between the enemy character and the player character. Some TV games and computer games are constituted to implement a game having a plurality of turns. Furthermore, when a fighting game is conducted among players, the enemy characters are controlled by other players, not by the automatic control of the computer.
Regarding conventional simulation games of this type, when making attacks in the amount of 1 turn in 3 phases against the enemy character, for example, 1 character selected for each 1 phase attacks the enemy character or conducts defenses, and thus, the operation in the amount of 3 phases is implemented by the 3 character bodies.
However, the conventional game devices of this type only processes of whether the attacks succeeded or not among the player and the enemy characters, and there was no such arrangement that changes/adjusts the characteristic of a phase based on the development of a game, such as making the offensive power of the player character against the enemy character relatively stronger than the defensive power against the enemy character, or doing the opposite in a different phase, etc.
Therefore, the object of the present invention is to provide an image processing device, especially a game device, having a variety in the characteristics of phases and also in the developments of the game scenes by giving the player a variety of responses in 1 phase, for example, the player's selection of weapons of various characteristics and his/her selection of attacks and defenses, etc.